I had a little run-in with the “customer service” folks at United Airlines last week. I won’t bother you with the details, because there was nothing particularly unique about the problem, and if you fly United with any frequency you’ve probably encountered as bad, or worse. Short version – when you strand me in a city overnight and cost me pretty much an entire workday, I don’t consider putting me up in a hotel for the night to be “compensation.” You’re the only reason I needed the hotel to start with. If I might exaggerate for purposes of illustrating a point, that’s kind of like running me over with a car, then telling me that you’ll cover the ambulance ride and we’ll be even.

Now, my first inclination was to uncork on the shrews working the Customer Disservice counter at Denver International Airport. But I changed my mind, because that would have been shooting ducks in a barrel. Granted, these people were surly even by United’s standards, and the supervisor was the single bitchiest airline employee I have ever encountered anywhere, which is saying something. Continue reading →